“The land question” is seldom a question. Typically it is a slew of dogmas and myths as tenacious as they are erroneous. Virtually every supposed fact about land in South Africa is not just wrong, but so far off the mark as to make the adoption of sound policies virtually impossible. Few issues are as bedevilled by the hard-wired inclination to see issues of race in black and white, in both senses of the term. A binary imperative seems to drive us into adopting one of two sides when things are seldom that simple. How many well-informed South Africans are even vaguely aware of the tenure under which Coloureds and Asians lived historically or live today, or how much land was “set aside” for their occupation, asks Leon Louw in this paper published by The Helen Suzman Foundation.

Centre For Development And Enterprise has conducted many studies on private schooling in South Africa. In a recent study, it was found that 30 percent of the total sample are private school, which is much higher than the official figures. Students perform much better in standardized tests, and the teacher-pupil ratio is much higher in private schools. Paying for schooling plays a significant role in making school authorities more accountable to parents, says a study of Centre For Development And Enterprise .